Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2 (26 page)

After all the checking
was done, Sean linked into the system to see if any orders had come down.  They
had.

“Everyone can stand
down besides the duty crew,” said Sean to his senior NCO.  “Get some food and
rest, then we’ll send the duty crew to get some.”

“Yes, sir,” said the
NCO, nodding her head.

“And Chief Gorbachev,”
he said, putting his hand on her shoulder.  “There’s no one I would rather have
on my team than you and these men and women.”

“Yes, sir,” said the
chief, smiling, then turning to go back to the lift and some down time, while
the Prince took his place back at his station and made sure for the fourth time
that everything was OK.

Chapter 11

I don't believe in an
afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing
heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of
heaven would be even worse.  Isaac Asimov

“We have translations,”
came the voice over the com circuit.

Captain Laura
Montenegro sat up in her chair and pushed away from the desk where she had been
working on requisitions.  She was the manning the system commander slot for the
Sestius System while Commodore Chung was out touring the asteroid processing
facility which had opened for operation last week.  Which put him over
forty-five light minutes away from the base and basically unable to command the
planetary defense system.

“Montenegro here,” she
said over her com link as she ran from her office toward the lift.  “What do
you have?”

“Multiple translations
from Hyper VII,” answered the tactical officer.  “Don’t know where they came
from, but we didn’t pick them up until they came into n-space.”

Damn
, she thought, running
into a waiting lift.  The doors closed behind her and the lift started up. 
They
did have to come in while the main sensor array was being replaced.
 
Normally they should have picked up the incoming ships hours before they entered
n-space.  The outer system buoys were due to be emplaced next week.  There were
no hyper capable ships in system to use their own sensors.  And the station’s
was out as a new and improved system was being put in.  Of course old,
unimproved and working would have been better than new, improved and not
functioning.

And all of the nonhyper
defense ships are out in the outer system to provide early warning
, she thought with a
grimace.  It was very likely that their light speed com transmissions were on
their way into the inner system right now.  Maybe to arrive any minute.  But as
they didn’t have hyperdrives they lacked the ability to send gravity wave code
transmissions, which made them pretty damned worthless.

The Captain came out of
the lift at a run, down the corridor seventy meters to the command center.  The
Marine sentry saluted as she hit the door panel with her open palm, keying the
entry with her prints and genetic code.

“What do we have?” she
shouted as she ran into the control room.  A trio of officers and a half dozen
enlisted personnel sat their stations, while the holo tank blazed with red dots
in the outer system.  They knew better than to jump to attention in the midst
of an emergency.

“We have translation of
ten vessels massing between destroyers and light cruisers,” said the duty
officer, a dark skinned Lt. Commander rising from the command seat to make way
for her.  She nodded her thanks as she sank into the chair and he stood near.

“Do we know whose
vessels, Lt. Commander Mauhana?” she asked, looking at the system schematic. 
The red dots were almost on top of the last reported position of their one
system defense destroyer.  The three corvettes were scattered along the
perimeter of the system.  Maybe they would be able to get back to the inner
system to do some good.  And maybe not.

“No idea, ma’am,” said
the Commander.  “We just know they’re not anything we’re familiar with.”

“Wait a minute,” she
said, the thought striking her.  “How are we getting this information without
our sensor array?”

“A freighter in orbit
picked them up and is transmitting to us,” said the Commander.  “Their Captain
is still trying to decide whether to run for it or take the crew down to the
planet.”

Damned tramp freighter
sensors are the best we can do,
thought the Captain. 
We’ve got to do
better than that.

“How long till the
sensor array is online?”

“At least four hours,
ma’am,” said a tech from his station.

“We’re getting another
feed from the freighter ma’am,” called the sensor tech.  “They report hyper
emissions approaching the system in the VII band.  At least four large
objects.”

And all they had to
fight at least fourteen unknown ships were three out of place corvettes and a
Class IV orbital fort.  At thirty-five million tons they were the smallest
fortifications in the Imperial inventory.  And the fighters.

“Contact ground
station,” she ordered, a plan forming in her mind.  “Have that group of space
fighters launch to orbit and report here.”

“Aye, ma’am,” said the
com tech, sending the orders out.

That’s gives me eighty
total fighters to launch a strike with
, she thought,
along with four fast attack
craft. And they won’t be able to see real time into the system.  So where to
hide them where they’ll do the most good when the time comes.

*     *     *

In the early morning
alarms and sirens were going off over the cityscape of Willoughby.  After a few
minutes sleepy citizens were rushing about, grabbing children and supplies. 
Many headed toward the wilderness and prearranged sanctuaries, while others
crowded into the underground shelters that were placed for their protection.

The regular troops and Marines
ran to their armories and gathered weapons and equipment, then headed for their
assembly points.  Most of the militia went to their armories as well, got their
equipment and weapons, and headed out.  About two thirds of them actually
reported to their units.  The rest reported to their families and led them to
sanctuaries and hiding places.  They would worry about legal repercussions on
another day.

On his farm six hundred
kilometers from Willoughby, near the Regional Capital of Frederick, Cornelius
Walborski woke as the house alarm went off.  He reached for the clock, sleep
clouding his mind, before realizing that it wasn’t the clock.  He opened his
eyes and saw that it was only a little after three AM.  He noticed that there
were sirens in the distance and the dogs, his and the neighbors, were barking
up a storm.

“What is it?” asked Katlyn
as she struggled to wake.

“Damned colony wide
alarm,” he said as he attempted to link into the net.

Her eyes opened wide
and she sat up straight in bed.

“Are we under attack?”
she asked, looking around the now lighted room.  One of the dogs, the inside guardian
for the night, jumped into the bed and moved around anxiously, tail wagging.

“I don’t know,” he
said, linking to the information.  “It’s a real alert though.  Keeps repeating
on the net that it isn’t a drill.  I guess I had better go in and see what’s
happening.”

“What do you want me to
do?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“Get in the house
shelter,” he said, looking into her frightened eyes and grasping her arms. 
“Take the guns and the dogs down there with you, and as many of the cats as you
can round up.  And wait until I send you a message on what to do next.  But sit
tight.  It’s probably just a damned drill of some sort, no matter what the net
is saying.”

Cornelius dressed
quickly, belted on a sidearm and walked to the door.  Katlyn met him there,
wrapped her arms around him, and put her lips to his.

“Be careful,” she said,
breaking the connection with his mouth and keeping her arms around his
shoulders.  “And come back to me.”

“I’ll be back,” he
agreed with a strained smile.  “You stay under cover until you hear from me. 
OK.”

She nodded her head and
he went out the door.  He ordered a pair of the dogs that followed him to stay,
and he got on his cycle and started the engine.  Looking to the west he could
see Frederick lit up in the distant night.  Spotlights shone into the clouds,
giving a visual alarm to those who might not actually receive the auditory
signals.

The armory at the
village was crowded, even though he was one of the first fifty men there.  Many
had brought along family members who were looking for news.  The new First Sergeant,
who always seemed to be there first even when he was a Platoon Sergeant, had no
answers for them and was telling wives and children to go back home.  The men
entered the armory and headed below ground to collect their weapons and
equipment.

“What’s going on Top?”
asked Walborski as he walked to the entrance of the armory bunker.

“Do I look like a
fucking newsy, Walborski,” said the First Sergeant, glaring at him.  “Get your
ass in there and draw your shit.”

“Yes sir, First
Sergeant,” said Walborski, giving the man a salute and hurrying down the steps.

Walborski saw his squad
leader in the armory proper, standing alongside the armorer who was handing the
troopers their rifles and other weapons, as well as ammunition and power packs.

“Sergeant Crowder,”
said Cornelius, stopping in front of the NCO.  “What’s going on?  Is it another
damned drill?”

“Not what the net’s
saying,” said the Sergeant, looking at the Private.  “Didn’t you link in before
coming down?”

“I did just that, Sergeant,”
said Walborski, nodding his head.  “But I don’t know what to believe on that
thing sometimes.”

“Well believe this one,
Private,” said the Sergeant.  “We have incoming hostiles.  Unknown hostiles. 
Heading into the system.  They should be here in about twenty hours if they
turn over and decel for insertion.  A lot sooner if they just blow by and shoot
at us.”

“And what good are we
going to be if they do that?” asked another Private, taking his rifle from the
armorer and checking to make sure it was right.

Well,” said Crowder,
sneering at the Private, “if you survive the kinetic weapons’ hits, I guess you
can help the other survivors.  And pray that someone comes out here and bails
our asses out of this mess before we run out of consumables.”

“Consumables?” asked
Walborski, taking the rifle that Crowder was holding out to him and looking at
it quickly to make sure that it was his.

“Yeah,” said the Sergeant,
leaning on the counter between him and the Privates.  “If they hit us really
hard it could bring down every structure on the planet.  Cave in the
underground shelters.  Even tear half the atmosphere off this world, and poison
the rest.”

“Damn,” said Walborski,
accepting a full load of ammo, power packs and grenades from Crowder’s assistant. 
“So we’ve got to hope they want to come down here and kill us up close.”

“Only way we’re going to
get some of them,” said the Sergeant.  “Now you boys need to be moving off and
getting into your gear.  I’ve got other customers waiting.”

Cornelius nodded as he
moved off.  He dodged a couple of troopers already in full equipment, making
his way to his platoon’s lockers.  There were a half dozen other men and a
couple of women already in there, pulling off their civvies and putting on
their combat gear.  Walborski opened his locker with a hand print and started
pulling his clothes off.

“We’re just cannon
fodder,” said Corporal Sheila McMurty, pulling on her protective skin suit. 
The suit adjusted itself to her body in a moment.

“Cannon fodder?” asked
Cornelius, pulling off his undergarments and grabbing his own skin suit.  The
fabric would provide some ballistic and radiation protection, as well as
shelter from the elements.  He put one leg into the suit and pulled it up.

“Yeah,” she said,
sitting and pulling a boot onto her left foot.  “We’re going to be nothing but
targets.  Drawing fire so the real soldiers know what to shoot at.  Just you
wait and see.”

She cinched the boots
tight while Walborski pulled his body into the loose fitting garmet.  The hood
went on last.  He made sure everything was in place, then pressed the seal on
the front of the suit closed.  As it sealed the suit tightened, adhering to his
shape like a second skin.

“You’re exaggerating, Corporal,”
said another Private, pulling on his armored vest and checking the fastenings. 
“They’re going to take it on the chin.  Just like us.”

“Sounds like everyone’s
about to get it,” said Walborski, sitting to put his own boots on.  He knew
that the regulars had better suits and armor than the militia.  His setup was
at least a half century behind theirs in capability.  But from what he had
heard a big foot was headed their way to stomp them.  And better equipment
would only allow an extension to the misery.